


Piercings

by Fira21



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-07
Updated: 2014-12-07
Packaged: 2018-02-28 13:59:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2735192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fira21/pseuds/Fira21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If he were to describe it, if he could, if anyone asked, he would say it was cause it wasn’t a thing back in his day. Just. In general.</p>
<p>Piercings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Piercings

**Author's Note:**

> So in Cap 2, Nat talks about a girl in SHIELD and Cap is like “with the lip ring? I’m not ready” and dezlet was like “I don’t think cap would be that judgmental” and I thought “I don’t either… but… well… oh hey, maybe he likes lip piercings *too* much? Maybe Steve has a thing for piercings and just doesn’t want anyone to know?” AND THIS IS THE BYPRODUCT OF THAT

If he were to describe it, if he could, if anyone asked, he would say it was cause it wasn’t a thing back in his day. Just. In general.

Piercings.

In his days, it was dames- women, that wore earrings. His ma had a nice pair of pearl drops for special occasions. He wasn’t sure if he was regretful or not that she was buried in them. He probably would’ve lost them to time like everything else but he would’ve had them for a bit. Maybe he could’ve given them to Peggy. Maybe it was better they were still with ma.

He remembers though, the first time he saw an earring on a fella. It was late, it was cold, and it was loud. There was music everywhere, people shouting, the radio counting out the time to midnight. He was outside cause the smoke had flared his asthma. He wasn’t sure if the cold outside was better or worse.

Either way he was still sitting outside, cramped against a cold wall and the wet ground trying to breathe and wishing he’d brought his inhaler and wishing he hadn’t left Bucky with his lady friend an hour back and wishing someone was here.

“Hey. You okay?” Hands on his shoulders and there’s a familiar taste of plastic being pressed against his mouth. “Right, breathe out, and… in.” The taste of stale medicine. There are still hands on him rubbing his shoulders. “You’re alright. Breathe. Just with me. Breathe out. And breathe in. There we go.”

And he finally gets his lungs back in order. Everything feels less like rasping pain. He breathes and cold bites but not painfully. “Thanks.” He finally wheezes out.

“Don’t mention it.” The voice says and he looks up. The most gorgeous man he’s ever seen looks back at him.

He can’t tell his hair colour, it’s darker, maybe a dark blonde? It doesn’t have the right shade for blonde but the pattern of grey is similar to his. But that could be the dingy lighting. His skin looks a deep tan. His eyes are light and there’s a smile crinkling the corners of them. He’s tucking an inhaler back into a coat pocket and leaning back from Steve. He’s got a casual stance, like Bucky does. Cocky, determined, like he knows all eyes are on him.

Steve… Does not do well with men that look like that. He feels a lurching twist in his stomach and swallows around a sudden lump in his throat.

The man holds a hand out. Steve takes it and tries not to stumble forward as he’s pulled up. The man braces him up. His hands are big and his fingers splay across his whole shoulder. Steve is in so much trouble.

He looks up again. And the man is still smiling at him. Steve gives a small smile back. “Thank you.” He mumbles.

“I’m Curtis.” The man says. He tilts his head back again and rakes his fingers through his hair. And it’s such a Bucky move that Steve aches with it. Sometime in his face must be noticeable because Curtis frowns at him. Steve gets distracted though by a shine at Curtis’s ear. An earring. Without thinking, he blurt out, “What’s the earring for?”

Curtis laughs. “You don’t-” He reaches up to tug at the earring. “I’m a sailor kid. Looking for a good time?” He pushes his hip out.

Steve’s face goes red. “You- I- I don’t-” He feels the lump in his throat grow. “Really?” He blurts and is instantly horrified with himself. He squares his shoulders and curls his hands into fists He watches as Curtis’s face goes sympathetic and Steve feels his face burn harder. “No. I mean- It’s not like-”

He watches as Curtis reaches a hand out. Steve flinches back a bit and tries to ignore Curtis’s sad smile. Fingers ruffle Steve’s hair and he tries not to lean into the touch, tries to ignore how cold he feels after Curtis pulls back. He watches Curtis tug at his earring again.

“S’alright kid. It’s not all that bad.” He says and turns to walk away.

“Isn’t it dangerous?” Steve blurts out. He watches as Curtis pauses and turns back around. He steps in to Steve.

“For the sake of yourself? When you’re actually just yourself? And not what you’re supposed to be?” Curtis grins at him. “It’s worth it.”

Steve feels something twist up inside him at those words. He thinks of war posters. Fight the good fight. Be a man. A true American hero. “Isn’t it… Unchristian? Unamerican?”

Curtis laughs. “Well I ain’t Christian for one. And see the world a bit kid. And then ask yourself: What is a true American?”

There are fingers in his hair again. And when he glances up he’s stuck on the brightness of Curtis’s eyes in the street lights. The gleam of silver in his ear.

“Past midnight.” Curtis says. “But here’s a gift.” He leans down and quick as you please, kisses Steve.

He’s certain he’ll never forget the whine he made as he feels Curtis’s lips, warm so warm, against his. And the noise he makes as Curtis leans back.

“Happy New Year kid.” Curtis says. And turns and walks away.

He never sees Curtis again, but that doesn’t mean much in Brooklyn. Not in the 30s. Bucky finds him later that night and doesn’t ask why Steve is so red, and so quiet. It’s cold and Bucky found him in the midst of another asthma attack after Steve walked too far looking for Bucky.

Bucky also never says anything the week he has to get Steve antibiotics and drain fluid from Steve’s ear, the first and last time he ever tries to pierce his ear.

He doesn’t tell Bucky about Curtis. He doesn’t tell anyone. But he remembers the gleam of bright eyes with no colour. And the shine of an earring in dim lighting.

What is American anyway?

He thinks about that a lot. After the serum. And even more. After Bucky falls. He’s seen the world now. And he’s asking.

What is American anyway?

 

Almost 70 years later he wakes to a baseball game he already knows. Memories of sneaking in, Bucky trying to hold back laughter, smacking Steve whenever he started giggling. A kind vendor winking as he handed them a bag of popcorn.

He hears the announcer, and knows something is wrong. But it’s the lack of sunshine, the smell of popcorn, Bucky’s laughter, that has him up and running,

 

There’s a million and one things to get used to in the future. Piercings aren’t something he was ready for.

They’re both accepted and not. It’s not odd for men to have piercings. But you can’t have them in certain jobs. People have freedom of expression, but it’s stifled for job security.

Steve looks around and sees everything he wanted when he fought for his country, but being suppressed by the government he fought for.

The woman at the market he shops at wears long sleeves to cover brilliant smears of colour on her arms. They’re the most beautiful thing Steve has ever seen. And he wants to shake her boss, ask him why. Why does he watch her sweat in the summer, for the sake of something as stupid as perceived propriety.

He sees her outside of work. Her arms bared. The first time he flinches, because he had noticed the pockmarks on her face but, coming from a world of war, he hadn’t really thought about it. Her nose has a hoop, her eyebrow a curl, there’s a gem above her lip and more earrings than he’d ever seen before. Her jeans are ripped, her arms are bare.

But after his initial reaction, he stops and watches. He sees her smile wider, move freer. She looks more real to him. And he aches. She looks so real.

And he just can’t understand. He can’t understand why anyone would want to stop that.

 

He doesn’t sleep well anymore. He didn’t sleep well before but it’s worse now. It’s not the noise, he could handle that. The noise is normal for Brooklyn. It’s just different. And every time he closes his eyes he sees things in the dark. He naps during the day mostly. And wanders at night.

Some people watch TV to unwind. Steve sees televisions that go blank and crackly, and it reminds him of his asthma. Staying inside he feels trapped. But sunlight makes him blink. The colours are too bright. He’s still not used to the sheer vividness of the world.

Things are less blinding at night. Everything is a bit less harsh. And everything is more real.

He sees people in makeup and glitter. Men dressed as women. Women dressed as men. All the variations in-between. Tattoos that shine in dim lights. Metal gleaming from everywhere. Ears, noses, mouths, eyebrows.

One night during Pride Week, he dresses down, with a cap to hide his face, he looks up and sees a man, a university student from the looks of the sweater he leaves draped behind the bar, in nothing but leather and a netted shirt. Metal pokes out from his nippes, above the hem of his pants two bars shine from his hipbones. Steve swallows and keeps walking.

He wonders what Curtis would have thought.

Bucky isn’t around to help when he has to cut the metal stud from his ear when it heals over the earring. There isn’t even a scar to remind him.

 

Later, a young woman laughs and hands him her clip-ons. She doesn’t know who he is, in his baggy shirt and baseball cap. But he’s cute and he stares at her earrings like a revelation. She finds a great joy in teaching him about clip-ons. And magnets. She’s allergic too, she says. Steve doesn’t correct her. It used to be true anyway. And he buys her a drink when she tells him about what a tongue ring can mean.

Later she finds out who she was talking to. Steve pays her bar tab for the year after she never tells anyone. He is only vaguely surprised when he sees her again later, when Thor introduces him to Doctor Jane Foster and her assistant/political science major/best friend Darcy Lewis.

Darcy just grins and winks at him. He blushes fiercely and thanks his ‘innocent’ reputation that no one thinks anything of it.

 

Later, Natasha mentions Lillian from accounting, “lip piercing right? … Yeah, I’m not ready for that.” And he might be. He could be. But he thinks of Curtis. And no. He’s not ready for Lillian.

And then they find Bucky. But it’s not Bucky. And they save the world again. And he goes looking, Sam comes with. But they still can’t find him.

On a whim, he clips silver magnets to his ears, ditches Sam, and hits a bar. A few hours later walking home he doesn’t flinch when he hears footsteps behind him. Would he have heard them if he didn’t want him to? Maybe not. But he stays calm all the same. Turns around slowly.

Bucky stares at him. No. Stares at his ears. “You shouldn’t have those.” He says.

Steve laughs. It’s a bit painful. He reaches up and tugs the earrings off. Holds them out. “Magnets.” He says. “World’s changed a lot Buck.”

Bucky keeps staring. He walks up carefully, like a beaten alleycat. He holds his hand out, the flesh one, and twitches when Steve drops the earrings in them. He frowns at them and closes his fingers around them as he looks up at Steve. His jaw is clenched.

“Yeah.” Bucky says, his voice hard. “It has.”

Steve aches but says nothing.

He watches, mouth dry as Bucky opens his hand again. He goes to separate the earring but it sticks to his metal arm. And Steve laughs. He can’t help it. He just breaks and laughter streams out of him.

Bucky glares at him. Removes the earring with his flesh hand and then tries to separate them one-handed. Steve keeps laughing.

Without thinking he walks up and grabs the earring, pulls the magnet from the stud. Bucky tilts his head and Steve clips it to his ear, still giggling. He might be wheezing a bit. He might be hysterical. It feels so good he doesn’t care.

He doesn’t realize the importance of this until he steps back. Streetlights gleam off Bucky’s ear, his arm, and Steve stops laughing. He feels a lump grow in his throat.

Bucky’s eyebrow is raised when Steve finally tears his eyes away from his ear. “Hasn’t changed that much apparently.”

Steve swallows. “You knew?”

“After spending a week squeezing pus out of your ear, I assumed.” Bucky says, voice dry.

“You remember.” He croaks.

“Some.” He watches as Bucky shifts, uncomfortable. “Not everything. I’m not-”

“I know.” Steve says. “Jesus Buck, I know. And I don’t care. Let me-” He reaches out his hand. Bucky stares at it. Doesn’t take it. Steve ignores the painful lurch in his gut as he pulls his hand back.

“World’s changed a lot.” Bucky says. But the look on his face...

“Not that much. Buck. Please.”Steve says.

Bucky reaches up and fiddles with his earring. Steve is reminded of Curtis. Big hands, broad shoulders. But Bucky isn’t cocky anymore. Isn’t determined. He’s hunched into himself. He’s smaller.

But he’s still Bucky.

“I guess…” Bucky says and stops. He holds out the other earring to Steve. “I guess we can always try.”

Steve clips the earring back on his ear, a match to Bucky’s and tries not to smile too wide when Bucky lets him grab his hand.

Together, they go back to find Sam.


End file.
